Fight or Flight
by golden.rebels
Summary: There was a wildly protective side of her when it came to Bucky Barnes and in those few moments, Steve saw it as clear as day. It was in her eyes, in her stance - but just as fast as it came, it went the moment Bucky's hand grazed her arm. They exchanged no words but in that one fleeting look, Steve saw something in Bucky that he hadn't seen in a lifetime. He saw hope. Bucky/OC
1. London, England

**This story starts off post Winter Soldier and pre Civil War**

* * *

 _And oh, this too shall pass_  
 _This loneliness won't last for long_

* * *

The winds were fierce as they tore through the desolate streets of London and the air was damp; the city's normal hustle and bustle nowhere to be seen. Puddles filled the deep potholes that lined the thoroughfares surrounding the cityscape which only made the glow of the streetlights all the more fluorescent.

It was a miserable night to most – but to Bucky Barnes, this was ideal. Walking amongst the shadows – _being_ a shadow. These days, it was all he knew. It allowed him to be one with the isolation the various cities and countries had to offer him. He could see things and find things without actually being seen or found himself. He could focus on getting the multitudes of questions he had regarding his life – both past and present – answered.

Tonight in particular was no different.

This was not his first time in London that much he knew. This particular part of the city reminded him of somewhere – somewhere very familiar yet extremely unversed at the same time. It reminded him of Brooklyn. It reminded him of home.

The first time Bucky had been 'back' to New York was directly after breaking into the Smithsonian. The Captain America exhibit had catalogue after catalogue of Steve Rogers' life and, as it had turned out, the blonde man who he had dragged out of the Potomac once upon a time had not been lying to him. He _did_ know him. And he knew him well. Well enough, at least, to contribute quite the tribute to his best friend Bucky Barnes.

He could remember the strange sensation of physically _seeing_ himself as Bucky Barnes and despite the fact he had broken in, he remembered staring at it for quite some time. He was smaller back then, which only made sense considering what he was now, and though his eyes remained the same shade and his hair the same colour, he hardly recognized the man that stared back at him.

He had gone back to Brooklyn for the first time that night. He had to see what was left of his supposed home, or at the very least if anything was stirred by the vision of it.

Nothing had, of course, which left him with an overwhelming sense of longing that he could not quite pinpoint. He hadn't recognized his home, he hadn't recognized the roads leading to it – he hadn't recognized a damn thing. It wasn't until weeks later when he found himself in London, that _something_ inside him sparked to life. He had been walking down a road just east of Covent Garden past a small establishment when it first happened. The bar itself triggered nothing for him; simply just another old brick building made to look with the times – but it was the music that flowed from it that stirred a familiarity inside of him that was nearly overwhelming. It was a jazzy sounding tune, not one from this time, and he recognized the upbeat tempo almost immediately which floored him. He had only stumbled over his own name just weeks prior and yet a _song_ of all things unleashed a flurry of memories deep inside of him.

The memory itself had only lasted for few moments at the time, but when he found himself back in London the second time around after chasing down a member of HYDRA, he had come right back and stood outside of the near-empty bar. He remembered feeling his hand shake as he hesitantly reached out to open the door and when he finally did, there was a sense of awareness that shook him to his core.

The waitresses that served in the bar were dressed exactly how they had been back in the forties and he recognized the song that blared throughout the tiny bar instantly. He did not know its name, of course, but he could see himself – or rather the man he had been – dancing with a dame. He could see her so clearly, raven hair pulled back into two liberty rolls and a paisley dress that twirled just right when he spun her around. It was as if it was playing out right before him rather than playing out in a distant memory he had had in a bar much like this once upon a time.

But it was all too much at the time and before he could think of stepping foot into the bar, he had turned and walked away to be a shadow once again.

Tonight marked the third occasion that Bucky Barnes found himself back in London. And as he walked towards the bar he did so with just the slightest bit of assurance. Since abandoning the bar the last time, he had recalled many more memories. Some of which took place in a bar much like the one his heavy footfalls lead him towards. He recalled that the bar in his memories had once been the local dance hall and he had spent many a night there – rarely with the same bird on his arm. He recalled Steve then, too.

These days he recalled Steve a lot. He had been in every single positive memory he had been able to recall thus far and even a few of the not so good ones; he was a constant. But so much had changed, _too_ much had changed, and despite their past there could never be a future. Not where Steve was concerned.

There were still too many holes, too many blank pieces of vital information he needed to have in order to piece his life together and he knew from personal experience that the effects of being tested on for years was still far from over. There were times when the rage would get too much and he could feel himself slip into his old ways; it seemed almost easier that way. _Anything_ was easier than reliving what he had done to so many people over the years. He would wake often times drenched in a pool of his own sweat, petrified of what he had done, of what he had seen and the few minutes it took for him to sober up from his nightmare were horrible. It was the few minutes of waiting that scared the hell out of him. Waiting to see if _this_ had all been the dream and whether or not he truly was still stuck under the control of Hydra.

No, he could not trust his own mind just yet. In fact, he wasn't sure if he ever could again.

Breathing out evenly through his nose, Bucky's jaw clenched as a spurt of anger flooded through his veins. The feeling was all too familiar at this point but it still took a lot of him to focus on anything _but_ the intense emotion. He had to, though. For his own sanity, he had to. And after a few long minutes, the feeling passed and before he knew it, he was standing outside of the familiar brick structure.

Much like it had been the first time, loud music from the forties could be heard blaring through the doors that stood not a foot before him. He had recognized the tune but only slightly and no images of a pretty girl being swung around graced his memory this time around.

Rather than dwelling on the blank memory, Bucky pushed open the doors and finally stepped foot inside of the establishment. The air that met him was thick and a part of him – possibly the part he had left back in the forties – expected to be met with a blanket of cigarette smoke but none came. Instead, all that met him was a friendly smile from the bartender, an old man nearing his seventies, and a couple swaying rather intimately on the dance floor.

The place itself was dead. Besides himself, there were only a few other bodies in the entire bar and that alone made him nervous. How was he to blend into the background if there _was_ no background? The bartender opened his mouth with a question about his drink of choice but Bucky simply shook his head and took a seat towards the back of the bar, ignoring the obvious look of confusion radiating from the man's face.

The man was dressed very much like many men would have been back in the day; pressed trousers, crisp white button-down, brown loafers and a pair of suspenders to top it all off. As strange as it was, it was rather calming to see something straight from the era he was plucked out of. It was almost as if he was back there, back to the time where he _was_ just Bucky Barnes of Brooklyn. Before the war, before Hydra, before _everything_ ; for a split second, he found himself relaxing back into the worn leather of his seat.

From the corner of his eye he could see a waitress scribble something down onto a pad of paper on the bar top before she gingerly made her way towards him. Tensely, he found himself grinding his molars together as he watched her approach. He would need to order something to keep the workers at bay; the last thing he needed was a questioning eye.

"Can I get you a drink or anything?"

He was half expecting to hear a British accent falling from the woman's mouth, but when an American one crept out of her thin pink lips, Bucky found his eyes immediately drawn up to the waitress that stood before him.

Much like the bartender, she was dressed according to the times in a flattering pale blue dress with a pair of black Mary Jane's on her feet. Parts of her blonde hair was pulled back from her face into two liberty rolls and the rest was left down in loose waves that hung down just beneath her breasts. She was smiling kindly down at him despite the scowl he wore across his own face.

"Just a beer." His eyes traced the tap that housed the brands before landing on a green one. "Keith's." He wouldn't drink it, of course. Not that it would have done anything; alcohol went down like water these days.

"Sure," she nodded her head only once. "Be right back."

Bucky watched the woman head towards the bar, being careful to keep his eyes low but focused. There was a sense of familiarity with the woman but he couldn't quite place his finger on it. She _did_ look like one of the many girls he would take dancing back in the day – especially dressed the way she was – but there was something else. He had seen those eyes somewhere before; that strange shade of greenish grey.

Before he could dwell on it any longer, the blonde was back at his table with a pint of Alexander Keith's. She offered him another small smile as she carefully placed it on the coaster but seemingly sensing his hostility, she left without another word. Slowly, Bucky let his steely eyes fall towards the glass but he never once reached out to touch the drink. He could _almost_ taste the fizzy alcohol on the tip of his tongue as he eyed the murky cider; _almost_ but not quite.

The slow song that had been reverberating through the walls of the bar suddenly switched and as the couple parted ways on the dance floor, it was as if a jolt shot through Bucky. _This_ song, he knew. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his oppressed memories, a bank was opened – and all it took were the first few seconds of In the Mood by Glenn Miller to do just that.

 _Don't be a punk, Rogers. Ask her to dance with ya_!

He could hear his own voice as clear as day as the song played out but it was the images that followed that took him by surprise. He could see himself standing there, leaning against the bar with a wicked smile stretching across his pink lips, and the man from the river, Steve, stood directly beside him. Much like he had been, Steve was smaller back then – _much_ smaller – but he still held the same conviction in an odd way.

 _I can't I—_

The memory, much like the others, began to fade quickly after that. At first it simply took the rest of Steve's sentence from existence, but before he could so much as try to stop it – the flashback finished and he was left reeling.

His hand slipped beneath the table as his thumb ghosted over the outline of the small notepad he kept in his pocket. Dozens of notebooks were stored in various places – many of which in his bag – but he made sure to keep at least one with him should a memory come back. Without wasting a second, Bucky brought out the small notepad and scribbled down the trigger.

 _In the Mood_

 _Glenn Miller_

Flipping the book shut, he peered around the small bar only to notice the blonde waitress' eyes were already trained on him. At first, she simply furled her brow at the tiny book but it was the look of curiosity that followed soon after that he didn't quite like. Swallowing hard, Bucky slipped the notebook back into his pocket before standing up to his full height.

Rather hurriedly, he slipped a five on the worn table and turned on his heel – not once glancing back at the curious blonde whose eyes he still felt boring into him. His footfalls were heavier this time around as he pushed open the door and slipped back into the night. The winds were still fierce and the ground still sleek and the puddles that covered the old cobbled roads only shivered with each large gust that blew.

And as he glanced habitually over his shoulder – not quite knowing what to expect – he felt profoundly heavier than he had just moments before.


	2. Charlotte Quartermain

_And I will stay up through the night  
Let's be clear, won't close my eyes.  
And I know that I can survive  
I'll walk through fire to save my life._

* * *

A menacing cloud hung low in the sky when Charlotte Quartermain walked out of her tiny flat and into the bustling streets of London. The air was relatively chilled for mid-September and as a particularly strong gust of wind blew against her, she found herself wishing she had worn something a little heavier than her thin leather jacket and jeans.

With a quick glance down at her watch, her pace hastened as her long, blonde hair blew all around her face. She was notoriously late for almost everything within her social life – but she'd be damned if she ran late today. Today was the day she had been looking forward to for months. Today, she was finally able to see her uncle Gabe for the first time in what felt like forever.

Charlotte had known Gabe Jones her entire life and though he was not _actually_ related to her, he was an integral part of her family no less. Gabe _was_ her uncle and even if there was no true bloodline shared between them, he was the only family she had left now that her father, SHIELD Agent Clay Quartermain, was gone.

Back when Clay had first started at SHIELD, Gabe Jones had become an almost fatherly figure to the blonde man. Clay was reckless and sought out danger more often than he prevented it but something about the wild man spoke to Gabe. Perhaps it was his involvement with the U.S Air Force prior to SHIELD or his fierce loyalty – _something_ stood out to him.

He had been there for Clay on several missions and was one of the main contenders when it came down to ensuring Fury saw the raw skill Quatermain possessed. He had even been there – maybe more so than ever before – when young Charlotte was born twenty-seven years prior.

At the time, Gabe had been a few years into retirement when he had received a phone call from an extremely anxious Clay. He stuttered on and on about how a baby girl had just 'turned up' at his door that morning. Clay had not seen the baby's mother, Georgia Fowley, since their one fateful night nine months prior but when the woman's brother showed up at his house with a blonde little girl on his arm, there were no doubts that the baby was his. She might have had her mother's straight-edged nose and rosy lips but she had her father's hair and his eyes; a strange shade of grayish green that ran on his side of the family.

After what must have been close to a thousand questions, Clay had found out that the baby's mother, Georgia, had died from complications during childbirth and though the little bundle had been a blessing to the remaining family, it was much too painful of a reminder of the life now lost. With that in mind, Georgia's brother went in search for Clay and thankfully found him not four weeks later living in a high rise in Manhattan.

Naturally, Gabe had played a vital role where that was concerned, too.

Clay's first thought had been to give the baby up for adoption as the life of an agent was much too dangerous for a baby, but upon talking to the one man in the whole world he could trust endlessly, he began to find the faults in that plan. Here was a precious baby girl with the sweetest little smile he had ever seen and she was _his,_ all his. He had taken part in making something so pure and perfect and in a world full of ugliness and danger he would be damned if he gave that up.

But having a family and being one of the most significant agents of SHIELD did not come easy. There were constant threats, constant dangers to _him_ let alone his family – especially when he became involved with the U.S government and their efforts against the Red Hulk. It was then that Gabe truly stepped up to the plate. He had taken the youngster under his wing much like he had done with her own father back in the day and had been there for all of her big moments; communion, confirmation, graduation – but it was when Clay was murdered and found in a meat packing plant seven years prior, that Gabe really stepped up to the plate.

Charlotte could distinctly remember every little detail of her fathers' funeral. From the weather – a sunny, warm day in late May – to the tasteless hors d'oeuvres and dozens upon dozens of unfamiliar faces that muttered their condolences. She remembered it all it, but perhaps what she recalled the most was feeling the heaviness of Gabe's palm on her shoulder as she stared down at the shined mahogany. It was oddly comforting despite the situation at hand; even when coffin was lowered into the cold, damp soil the weight of his hand was still there. It was just enough to get her by.

She was only nineteen then. Nineteen and orphaned with no true family besides that of her Uncle Gabe – but somehow, that had been enough. Despite his own ageing frame, the older man ensured he was there for Charlotte Quartermain, no matter what.

He couldn't save Clay, but he'd be damned if he didn't help young Charlie along the way.

In fact, he had been the one to push her in the direction of London. He knew how many enemies her father had had back in the day and having Clay Quartermain's daughter roaming the streets of New York City – the city where a lot of those enemies still dwelled – seemed like trouble. So, on her twenty-third birthday, Charlotte packed her bags and moved across the pond.

Her flat was small and sat above a local pub just south of Piccadilly Circus. The rent was cheap enough and sat only a stones-throw away from Smoke – a 1940's themed bar she had been working in for the last year and a half. It was ideal for what it was. Sure, at times she found herself missing the States but she had nothing there.

Gabe had moved across the pond just a few years after she had once he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. The best doctors were over there and, though he'd never admit it, Charlotte knew her being there was a major reason as well. The pair had become an almost family-like unit and if his time was coming, he'd be damned if he spent it anywhere else than with his beloved niece.

"I.D, ma'am?" A large burly man asked as Charlotte finally approached the familiar building that housed her uncle.

With a small nod, the blonde trudged through her black purse and pulled out the glossy I.D badge that granted her access into the expensive facility. She knew it was a rather elite home made solely for ex-SHIELD agents or the like but every time she looked at the tall, glassy structure it amazed her.

"Miss Quartermain?" Her steely eyes dropped from the staggering tower down to the balding man that stood before her. "Have a nice day."

Shooting him a small, half-hearted smile, Charlotte swung her purse further up her shoulder and made her way inside of the expensive structure. The _clip-clap of_ her booty heels sounded down the hallway as she eyed the nearest elevator and as she reached out to press the button, she was pleasantly surprised to hear the loud _ding_ before its doors opened up.

Fixing the strap of her bag so it was higher on her shoulder, she stepped into the elevator and waited for the thick doors to close – but when a hand stretched out and stopped the doors from moving, a rather strange nervous feeling erupted in her gut.

The man was normal enough. Medium build, minimal facial hair, average height, brown eyes and hair, but _something_ about the stranger made Charlotte take a subtle step closer to the wall. She had been raised on suspicion, a trait handed down to her from both Gabe and her own father, but she'd rather assume the worse than go into situations blindly.

The doors closed within moments and as the pair stood in silence, a gnawing feeling of anxiety bled into her senses. Something about this, about _him_ felt wrong. Raking her eyes up his frame rather quickly, she wasn't entirely shocked to find his eyes already trained on her and her alone.

That was when her stomach fell.

"You forgot to pick a floor." Was all she said, trying to be nonchalant as she glanced at the buttons.

The man said nothing at first, simply just looked from her, to the buttons and then back to her before giving her a gentle shrug. Within moments, the man's fingers tapped the floor above her own. "How silly of me."

Swallowing hard, Charlotte attempted to give the man a smile but knew how mangled it must have looked. She was nervous and she knew it showed. She hadn't even realized she had been holding her breath until the quiet _ding_ sounded from above the doors. She made it.

Breathing out evenly through her nose, she stepped out of the elevator and moved to turn left but stopped upon feeling a cold hand envelope her wrist. "Quartermain, is it?" Her blood ran cold at the man's tone and as she turned back to face the stranger, her stomach fell at his sneer.

"How—" She paused. "Who are you?"

With his free hand, the man reached into the pocket of his trousers – a move all too nerve-wracking for Charlie – before pulling out the familiar badge she had pulled out from her purse only moments before. "Just returning this to you, Miss Quartermain."

The gesture was hollow and the feeling the man had left her with was ever-present as she carefully peeled the laminated badge from his hand. "Thanks." She muttered, racking her brain on whether or not she had gotten it back from the security in the first place.

The man continued to stand there looking at her in a way that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge, but before she could make a move herself, the elevator doors began to close with the man still inside. "Be seeing you soon, Charlotte."

The doors shut within seconds leaving Charlotte both confused and nervous. She had often thought about changing her surname to _anything_ but Quartermain knowing full well just how infamous her father had been during his time with SHIELD, but she could never bring herself to do it. Changing her last name would be like changing a part of herself – the part that brought her closer to her dad – and doing that just felt wrong.

With a steady breath, Charlotte rolled her shoulders and attempted to put the minor confrontation behind her. This wasn't the first time she allowed her nerves to get the better of her and it certainly wouldn't be the last. So, with that in mind, she pushed out a small smile that truly wasn't so hard to come by considering who she was about to see, and made her way to the sign in desk.

"Hi, I'm here to see—"

The woman looked up at the blonde and waved off the introduction. "I know who you are love," the older woman smiled. "Mr. Jones is just finishing up his lunch if you want to meet him in his room."

Charlotte nodded and once again shot the older woman a small smile before she made her way down the familiar corridor that lead to his room. The building was unlike any other palliative care facility around as it was funded by Stark industries and was every bit as lavish as it was modern. It felt and looked more like a high-end hotel than anything else and though she knew her Uncle Gabe was the polar opposite of lavish _or_ modern, he liked his time here and that was all that mattered.

When she rounded the corners that lead to his room, she was pleased to find him happily – albeit weakly – munching on the last of his pudding. His eyes were focused outside of the large floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire right wing of his room but before she could walk right in, one of his nurses intervened. "Just a word before you go in and see him."

Charlotte nodded and eyed the male nurse nervously before sidestepping back into the hallway. He couldn't have been much older than she was but the worry lines creasing his forehead made her stomach squelch nervously.

"Is he okay?" Were the first words tumbling out of her mouth. She looked over the man's shoulder towards her Uncle who had now finished up his pudding. When the nurse didn't answer right away, she looked b. "Well?"

"He's getting weaker." The nurse told her, glancing back at the ageing man sadly. "We ran a few blood tests last night and the cancer does seem to be spreading. Not at an extremely fast pace, but it _is_ spreading."

The lump that had formed in Charlotte's throat was enough to bring her to her knees but rather than succumbing to the grief, she looked back at the nurse and sighed. "How long does he have?"

The nurse eyed the blonde carefully before gently shaking his head. "It's hard to say. He _is_ ninety-six years old, he's had a hell of a life as you well know and—"

" _How long_?" She demanded, feeling the familiar tingle of tears behind her eyes.

"A few months at best. Maybe less."

It was as if she had been hit with a freight train. For a moment she was left breathless and reeling as she thought selfishly about her one last remaining family member leaving her. She was dizzy and felt sick but she refused to cry at this point. She couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to him.

"Is that my Charlie?"

The quiet voice of Gabe woke Charlotte out of her reverie and before she could think of letting her emotions show, she turned and shot the man a watery smile.

He looked good and as he pushed away the reminder of his meal and grinned across at her, she found her own smile widening. "Hey, Uncle Gabe," she muttered, her heart racing in her chest with this new information. "How are you feeling?"

She walked over towards him and took a seat in the plush chair that sat by his bed. He had tubes and IV's in his arms and though he wore a starch white gown and mesh booties on his feet, she could tell his spirits were high.

"Look at you, kid," he said, grinning at her fondly. "Boy howdy ain't you lucky I'm stuck in here. I'd have to kill all of those boys out there thinkin' they're good enough for my niece."

"Oddly enough a college drop-out working as a part time waitress and full-time secretary doesn't warrant the lineup of suitors it might have back in the day." She teased, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

Gabe rolled his dark eyes as he adjusted the pillow under his back. "A tall, beautiful blonde in any decade is still a tall, beautiful blonde." He quipped, giving her a small, genuine smile. "So how's life outside of these walls, Charlie?" His thumb stroked her outer palm as he stared adoringly up at her. "Everything okay?" She was a horrible liar and she knew it would only be a matter of time until he saw the sadness behind her eyes but before she could so much as speak a word about it, he cut her off. "Don't be giving me that look, Charlie."

Her grip on his hand tightened. "So you know, then?"

The old man allowed his head to lull onto his pillow. "Of course I know, but I'm ninety-six years old, how can I be upset about it?" He relaxed back into his mattress. "I've lived a good life."

Charlotte swallowed hard as she fought for control of the lump in her throat. She knew if she spoke to soon the tears would only flow, so before she said a word she let out a long, low breath of air and swallowed. "You aren't scared?"

Gabe looked up at her and tenderly brushed a strand of light hair back from her face. "Sweetheart, everybody's scared of dying but that isn't an excuse to stop living."

He had been out of the South for years now but that obvious little _twang_ was still ever present when he spoke. It had always made her laugh as a kid, but now, watching him waste away to nothing, it only made the hollow sensation in her chest ache.

Sensing this, the old man stared across at Charlotte for quite some time before he gestured to a locked cabinet beneath his personal attributes. "There's a key in that bin over there. It opens up the safe. Can you open it for me?"

Charlotte was quick to comply and did as she was told. Half expecting to see exactly what you'd expect to find stashed away in a safe, the blonde was rather confused to find a stack of notebooks in the very center of the safe. Nothing of monetary value as one would expect, just six leather-bound books. With furled brows, she carefully took them out and eyed each book before handing them off to her uncle. "You writing a life story or something there, old man?"

Gabe grumbled something beneath his breath before she joined him back on the chair. "I need you to keep these safe, ya hear me? And read 'em, too." His dark hand swept over one of the books before he flipped it open where his messy scrawl could be found littering each page. "I kept these during the war mostly but there's a few new ones."

Charlotte's brows rose at the age of them before she too grabbed one to gently flip through. He had attached pictures to various pages inside of the notebook but she had to laugh at the various pictures of women that stared up at her. No two were the same. "Lady killer back in the day, eh?"

The grin she had come to know so well spread across his cheeks like wildfire as he scanned the spread of women he had been in contact with during the war. "This one, nurse Cornwall, she was my favourite."

Charlotte laughed out loud and playfully shook her head. "Dirty old man." She teased before flipping open another book. This one didn't have near as many pictures of women in it but there _was_ a photo that caught her attention. It was a small black and white photo, very much worn from age, of six men. She narrowed her eyes at Gabe's messy writing in hopes to decipher it.

 _Italy, November '43_

The group of men in the picture all held guns and neither wore a smile but she could sense there must have been some form of brotherhood between them. Chancing a look at her uncle, Charlotte pressed her fingernail to the picture and cleared her throat. "Your Regiment?"

Gabe's dark eyes fell from his own notebook to the one she held and allowed a rueful smile to pull at the corners of his lips. "My brothers," he affirmed. "We called ourselves The Howling Commandos." She had heard the term from her father for years but never once did she have a face to the name.

Charlotte's grey eyes scanned over the picture for what must have been close to a dozen times before landing on one of the men. He looked oddly familiar for a man who would be nearing one hundred years old by now, but there was _something_ about him that she had seen before.

"Who was this?" She found herself asking, pointing to the man that stood to Gabe's right. He was handsome and tall and had dark unruly hair with a strong jaw line.

Gabe, whose eyes were still glued to the picture, smiled sadly down at the image before opening his mouth. "That was James Barnes. Insisted on being called Bucky, though." Despite the obvious sadness in the old man's eyes, he shot the younger woman a smile and laughed. "You think I was a ladies' man, you shoulda seen him in action. Hell of a sniper, too."

Charlotte continued to stare down at the picture of the man when she asked her next question. "What happened to him?" She knew the answer, _of course_ she knew the answer, but she couldn't shake the familiarity of him for the life of her.

Gabe's smile was suddenly gone as he undoubtedly went to the dark place in his mind where she knew most of his war memories had been kept. "He died." Was all he said before patting the hard leather. "He's in there. All of them are. I want you to have them."

Slowly, Charlotte looked up from the picture to peer across at Gabe. "You don't want them?"

Gabe rolled his eyes. "Now what in hell do you think _I'm_ going to do with 'em? Get buried with them? I worked with a hell of a team," he paused. "We _were_ one hell of a team and I want someone to know our story. Not just what the Smithsonian says."

She had wanted to go to the Smithsonian to see the small tribute to Gabe and the rest of the Howling Commandos ever since it had been erected but had never found the time to. She never thought she needed to, in all honesty. Between what the history books said and the stories she heard from her own father – what more could a small plaque tell her?

"There's mention of your father in these books, too." Gabe went on to say. "And you as well."

Charlotte beamed across at Gabe as she slid the six thick notebooks into a bag. "Hopefully none of _his_ former conquests are in here?" she teased, being careful to stack them neatly. "I can handle seeing yours, his not so much."

Gabe only smiled. "No other woman mattered once you came along, Charlie."

Her smile fell just slightly as she sat there beyond touched at his words. There was a lot of pain from her father's murder and with the information on Gabe's rapidly declining health, Charlotte felt her chest constrict with a fresh bundle of tears.

She wouldn't cry, though. Not now. Not when Gabe needed her most.

"You gotta promise me something, kid." Gabe began as Charlotte placed her hand on top of his once again. "You remember what Clay and I always said to you growing up? You always have to be looking over your shoulder. Trust your gut at all times." She vaguely thought back to the man in the elevator but didn't think it wise to bring it up _now_ of all times. "Your dad would want you safe and sound. _I_ want you safe and sound. Ya hear me?"

Like a child being told to obey, Charlotte nodded her head and gently patted his arm. "I'll be safe."

Gabe nodded. "You still go to those classes down at your gym?" _Those classes_ he had been referring to were self-defense classes she had been going to for all of about four months before she got bored. She knew the fundamentals of fighting, both Clay and Gabe had ensured that much, but glory, was she rusty.

"Sure." She lied, grinning down at the old man. "Every day."

But there was no trace of a smile on Gabe's lips. "Child, I swear to the Lord above if you do not—"

"I'll start up again," she soothed, not wanting to upset him. "I promise."

Seemingly believing her, Gabe hummed back his response before settling back into his plush bed. "Now, tell me what's been going on, sweet girl? How's work been?"

From there, the pair fell into their old ways of catching up but Charlotte kept the man in the elevator out of the conversation. She knew she had probably been overreacting that _something_ about the interaction shook her.

And try as she may to look past it, something in her gut told her to be on high alert.

She would see him again. She just knew it.


	3. Subject 301

Maybe it was from his years of working with the enemy but Bucky Barnes could spot a Hydra agent from a mile away these days. He knew their behavior, he knew their habits, he knew _them_ and because of how of his training over the last few decades, he knew how to find them without being seen.

They had made him a ghost; a lethal shadow that would appear only when necessary and though he had strayed from Hydra nearly a year prior, some of his training had stuck. No, he didn't kill these days – not if he could help it, at least – but he was able to use the skills he'd attained and put them to use in puzzling his old life back together again.

A lot of his answers had come from the handful of Hydra agents he had been able to track down since he had shed his title of Winter Soldier. Neither were willing to talk, of course, but he had grown accustom to that. Rarely did they hand over prized information, especially to a previous weapon, no less, but Bucky was still just that: a _weapon_ and he always managed to get the information he needed.

Currently, he was still in London and had been following _this_ specific agent down for four days straight. He had first caught wind of him the night he had left that old forties bar and had been on his tail ever since. The agent was yet to see him, however. Bucky ensured he was always _just_ far enough away to see everything without actually being seen himself.

So far, he had spotted only one agent but he knew that was hardly the case. There was a reason the evil organization had a name like Hydra; cut off one head and two more always appeared.

So, Bucky waited. He _waited_ for the agent to slip up and make contact with another proxy but the moment never came. Now, it was nearing the end of day four and Bucky was growing restless. Patience was not a word in his dictionary anymore given that he'd lost a fair chunk of his life while under Hydra's rule, and the little he _did_ have was dwindling by the second.

With an agitated sigh, Bucky adjusted the cap on his head as he watched the agent walk back to the shelter he had been keeping base in since he had found him. Night had long since fallen on the city but it was a nice, cool night and the streets were crowded and bustling with both tourists and locals alike. He knew that he should wait, _he knew it_ , but try as he may to listen to that small voice in his head, his predisposition took over and within seconds, he found himself hastily walking towards the near-empty building.

On instinct alone, he pulled his black cap further down to cover more of his face and splayed out the fingers of his metal hand beneath its glove. He knew the glimmer of it was well hidden beneath both his dark shirt and jacket but even knowing this, he glanced down at it regardless before subtly nodding his head.

He was ready.

Glancing over his shoulder, Bucky crossed the street that would lead him to the barren apartment and slipped in through the open door. It hadn't been locked, in fact he wasn't sure it _could_ lock anymore judging by the look of it, but as he took a step further into the dark hallway, he noticed a tiny red light glimmering in the far left corner. A bomb or some sort of trap for any poor soul that wandered a little too far for his own good. Bucky simply clenched his jaw and remained standing perfectly still as his steely eyes swept up his surroundings.

He counted three traps that awaited him if he was not careful.

With an agitated sigh, Bucky turned back on his heel to head back towards the street but was stopped when an elbow collided directly into his nose. With a grunt, Bucky stumbled just slightly before the familiar swell of anger erupted in his belly. The agent swung for another hit, clearly trying to sway Bucky in the direction of the three triggers that awaited him just down the hallway, but Bucky remained firm in his footing as he swung his metal arm to connect with the agent.

At first, the agent looked shocked – as if realization hit of just _who_ he was fighting – but as quickly as the shock had come, it passed the second Bucky punched the center of the man's ribcage with his metal arm. He knew the places easiest to kill a man and hitting him where he had with the pressure he'd delivered was enough to shatter the man's ribs hard enough to splinter several organs at once.

At first the man simply just stood there gasping for air but Bucky watched as those gasps slowly became polluted by the blood seemingly entering his lungs. Without so much as batting an eye, Bucky watched the man fall to his knees before finally succumbing to his injuries.

Bucky eyed the dead man's frame before bending down to his level. No, he was no longer a weapon for Hydra but he knew better than anyone that fighting, _killing_ came with the territory now. Try as he may to avoid it, it _always_ came. With a small sigh he began to sift through the man's jacket before feeling an unfamiliar object in his right pocket. Slowly, he pulled out the small black entity only to realize it must have been an off switch to the three traps set down the hall. With furled brows, he observed the set of buttons carefully before glancing back to the small red dot in the corner. With bated breath and ready to run, Bucky hit the small button and relaxed slightly upon watching the light disappear. The other two followed in suit.

Standing back up to his full height, Bucky eyed the body carefully before dragging him further into the base. If another agent decided to show up tonight of all nights and find his dead associate in the corridor, he knew he'd have a mess on his hands.

Once he had successfully pushed open the doors that lead inside of the base, he dropped the man's arm and immediately went to searching through the messy apartment for any hidden files. From experience alone, he knew to search the walls and floorboards first. Having kept much of his own memories and belongings in those exact places, he knew _something_ would be there and after splintering through the floorboards beneath an old couch, he was not disappointed.

Three separate files were there and though neither of them pertained to him, there was on that piqued his interest.

The file spoke of a new subject under Hydra's control, _subject 301,_ but the characteristics of _his_ treatments and this new one were eerily similar. Both involved creating a hybrid for Hydra to use as a weapon, and what was potentially the worst of it, both involved the complete cleansing of one's mind.

Subject 301 was meant to be brainwashed, wiped clean - just as Bucky had been all those years ago.

Grinding his teeth, Bucky continued to flip through the file only to have two photos slip out of the beige encasement. The first was a picture of a man he recognized right off the bat, but just _why_ he recognized him, he had no clue. The man was a SHIELD agent; blonde, broad, strong - but it was his eyes that he knew.

They were a strange shade of greenish grey and though he couldn't recall as to why they seemed familiar, they did.

With his interest piqued, he read through the man's file. Clay Quartermain: infamously involved with such cases as the Hulk and Red Hulk; one of the top agents SHIELD had to offer. He was not shocked to find out he had been found dead seven years prior solely because that's how it worked. Quartermain seemed to be a raw, direct risk to Hydra and when Hydra caught wind of potential risks, they either used them or disposed of them.

Unfortunately it seemed to be the latter for Quartermain.

Still, Bucky couldn't shake the feeling that he knew the man. He wanted to believe it wasn't because he had killed the man once upon a time, _that_ was a feeling he knew too well, but for as much as he hoped he had at least gotten a handle on deciphering who he had killed and who he hadn't, there was still that niggling feeling of doubt in the back of his mind.

That was when the second picture caught his attention. It was a photo taken from a distance of a woman walking along the street. From the angle it was taken on, he couldn't _quite_ make out her face but her long, blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and she wore gym attire on her tall, fit frame. She didn't seem to know the picture had been taken and as he continued to flip through the file and more and more pictures came to light he was sure she hadn't known about _any_ of them being taken.

There were pictures ranging from being taken through the blinds of her apartment to pictures of her walking into the large hospice downtown, but it wasn't until a rather zoomed in photo of her came up that realization hit Bucky like a ton of bricks.

There, plain as day, was a picture of the blonde waitress he'd seen from the bar a few nights prior. Below it, the words _Subject 301_

The muscle in Bucky's jaw clenched as he immediately began to read through the various pages of information Hydra had kept on the girl. Just as he had expected, Clay Quartermain's eyes _had_ been a familiar sight only they weren't directly his but those of his daughter.

Just how long they had been keeping track of the girl, he had no idea, but it was obvious they were intent on their decision. They had her height, weight, blood type – everything they _would_ need to know to turn this girl into a mindless weapon.

What got him, however, was the lack of details the file had on just _how_ they were going to get her. He knew for a fact that as of four days ago, she was still working at the bar but being ill-planned for the unexpected wasn't like Hydra. The only thing the file spoke of was the promise of Electromagnetic Pulse Emissions gained from exposure to chemical radiation.

An unfamiliar feeling swirled in Bucky's gut the more he read through the dossier. It made him feel strangely ill knowing this woman had absolutely no idea (or so he assumed) that this was going to happen to her and the emotion that followed was oddly intense. Was it pity? He still couldn't quite grasp human emotion too well at this point but whatever he was feeling nearly floored him.

Just as quickly as the feeling had come, however, it vanished the second a deafening sound of a blast echoed out around him.

On instinct alone, Bucky dropped the folder and covered his head as he anticipated the fallback of an explosion but when none came, he slowly stood. His feet propelled him to the door faster than he could process and with wide eyes, he looked around him, instantly trying to find the source of the explosion.

Screams followed the discharge soon after and the few people that had joined him on the street either ran the opposite way or wore the same look of absolute fear on their faces as black smoke suddenly began to bleed into their senses.

The smoke was thick and sulfuric but it was the pungent smell that lingered afterwards that made Bucky anxious.

It smelled almost chemical.

That wasn't good.

He debated running at first. It would be easy with the distraction of the bomb after al. He could slip back into the shadows without so much as a second thought, but there was a sense of obligation he felt upon finding that folder. Something in his gut told him that the explosion had little to do with chance and everything to do with Hydra.

 _This_ was how they planned on getting subject 301, he just knew it.

So, without so much as a second thought, Bucky found himself walking briskly towards the blast. No one looked at him as he sifted through the crowds of people starting to gather outside of their homes but as he rounded the final corner that would lead him to the bomb site, Bucky halted in his tracks and took it all in.

True to his gut, it was the bar he had been just days prior that now sat smouldering in flames. Half of the roof was gone and the entire front end of the building had been blown off in the blast, but it was the overwhelming smell of compounds that forced Bucky to be more alert. At first, his eyes scanned the premises for a means into the mess without getting himself caught in the flames, but when he noticed a man sneaking out of the building unscathed, his blood boiled.

The man was obviously Hydra and clearly had not seen Bucky watching his every move as he threw something resembling a needle into the hot flames that licked the side of the building. A large part of Bucky wanted to follow the man knowing full well he could potentially get some answers out of him but his feet remained firmly planted on the ground as he thought of the woman inside of the building.

There was a fiercely protective side of him that sparked to life in those few moments, another completely foreign feeling to Bucky as he watched the agent slip away into the night. He couldn't pinpoint the exact feeling but something in his head told him that _this_ was part the Bucky that had lived in the forties. He had felt protective in the past, he knew it, but such an emotion hadn't been stirred since that day at the Potomac with Steve. It had been a slow process, but he was learning to differentiate between right and wrong again. He had been right to save Steve Rogers that day and he knew deep down that letting a woman burn to death – or worse, captured by Hydra – was _not_ the right thing to do.

With an almost animalistic growl, Bucky found himself stepping over the scalding pieces of metal and debris that now littered the street as he walked into the building. An overwhelming sense of anger pounded through his veins as he walked through the falling ash but just _who_ the anger could be directed at he couldn't quite tell. Was it himself? The agent? The woman?

Within seconds of him climbing through the wreckage, Bucky saw the blonde.

She was either dead or unconscious and had slight burns on her upper arms and gashes on her left shoulder, face and neck. The closer he got, however, the more he noticed the slight rise and fall of her chest.

She wasn't dead, at least not yet.

Reaching down, he threw the smouldering pieces of remains that had fallen on top of her away with his metallic hand and without missing a beat, swept her up. The second her hair fell behind her shoulder as her head lulled back, he noticed the rather large and swollen needle mark that sat at the base of her neck.

So he _had_ seen the agent dispose of a needle.

Clenching his jaw, Bucky began to walk out of the building with the woman in his arms. Whatever it was that Hydra had planned; _something_ had already been implemented but the lack of answers was eating away at him.

He heard her groan slightly and mumble something beneath his breath, but he couldn't make it out. Not with the raging fire that burned just inches away from them. He did, however, notice the moment her eyes opened up to reveal that strange shade of grey he had recognized right off the bat. At first she didn't appear to comprehend what was happening, simply just grimaced slightly from what he could only assume was from pain, before a strangled sob escaped her lips.

"What—" The sentence went unfinished as her head once again lulled back against his arm but he noticed her blink several times as if to try and focus in on her surroundings. When she clearly couldn't, the blonde raised her head and this time looked directly at Bucky with both fear and confusion. He noticed her swallow several times as if trying to formulate her words but for moments, none came.

She was in extreme pain and the fear in her eyes was as clear as day.

"I've seen…" The woman furled her brows as she tried her damnedest to focus in on Bucky's face and he could see from the corner of her eye that there was confusion there. She was still lying limp in his arms and the small bit of energy she found was fading fast, but the emotion was obvious. "Bucky Barnes?" She swallowed. "H-How?"

Bucky's back stiffened the second his name rolled off of her lips and if he hadn't been careful, he knew he would have dropped her from the shock of hearing it. How did this woman know his name? Bile stirred in his throat but he swallowed it down. Who was she? Why did she know him? Dozens of questions swirled through his mind as they finally escaped the burning building but before he could get a single one answered, the blonde's eyes fell shut and her head lulled back lifelessly.

Sirens were in the distance now. It wouldn't be long before there would be a handful of first responders scouring the scene, but Bucky simply continued to stand there eyeing the injured woman with wide eyes for what felt like ages as her words sunk in.

She had said his name. _His name_.

The sirens were closer now and crowds were starting to gather outside of the building. He was lucky if he hadn't been seen by now and he in no way could afford to have the police's attention on him. His options were limited.

Before he could change his mind, Bucky quickly walked towards a woman and her teenage son who had been standing there watching the entire interaction and gently set the blonde down on the bench that sat just feet away from them.

"She's hurt." Was all he said, pushing his hat down to cover more of his face. His eyes were cold as he looked at the two strangers, his jaw firm, but they nodded at his words nonetheless and the woman immediately offered the near-lifeless body her coat.

"Don't you want to—" The woman began to say, but Bucky had already walked away from the scene and slipped back into the shadows that the city had to offer.

Just like that, Bucky once again became a ghost.


	4. Transfusion

_Sirens and smoke remind us  
_ _Maybe the world won't find us  
_ _Fall to the Earth in red light 'til it's gone_

* * *

It had been five days since Charlotte Quartermain had woken up in the hospital and as she was finding out, the fifth day was a _hell_ of a lot more painful than the four prior. Her head spun, her ribs ached and every burn and laceration on her body that she had attained from the blast seared her skin.

She looked bad, too. Though she had only started getting up to go to the washroom on her own the day before – a feat she was _quite_ thankful for – she had caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and nearly died on the spot. Her long, blonde hair was matted and wild due to her constant horizontal state on the bed and the gashes that lined her cheekbones and chin were ghastly. One of them in particular, a deep cut that stretched from the base of her ear up to the apple of her cheek was undoubtedly going to scar, but besides that and a rather large burn on her forearm – all of the rips _would_ eventually heal. Her sprained ankle, the mild concussion, and the bruised ribs – they _would_ all heal.

Yet despite all that, _something_ still felt different. Off.

She wanted to be happy that she survived an explosion, and she _was_ but something in her bones told her that something wasn't right. Something had changed within her, but just _what_ that was, she had no idea.

"You're looking a little more chipper today, Charlie."

Upon hearing the familiar voice, Charlotte's sore head slowly lulled towards the doorway only to notice Dr. Steinbeck standing there with a timid but content smile on his aged face. He was a kind man, Dr. Steinbeck, and from the time Charlotte had woken up completely dazed and confused in the hospital bed, he had been there to assure and assist her every step of the way.

"Is that code for not looking half as shitty as I feel?" She teased, smiling only slightly to avoid ripping the deep cut on her upper lip. A small groan escaped her lips as she attempted to sit up a little straighter but as an overwhelming pain reverberated across her ribs, she settled back down with a quiet thud. "Shit."

"Your ribs are still tender, I assume?" The doctor asked, stepping towards her bed with her chart in hand. He gently reached forward and placed his cold, gloved hand on top of her ribs and felt around for any discrepancy from his last check. When Charlotte let out an audible hiss, the doctor removed his hand and shot her a sympathetic smile. "Ah, yes. Still tender."

Glancing up at the older doctor, Charlotte allowed a small frown to mar her face. "Remind me again why morphine wasn't an option?"

Dr. Steinbeck's furry eyebrows rose in question. "It was. But it was taken off the table when you're body refused it. Just like it did with the blood transfusion." He was quiet for a moment before he dropped his brown eyes to the floor. "Which is precisely why I came to talk to you."

A sudden bout of nerves erupted in Charlotte's stomach as she watched the doctor's shoulders fall _ever so slightly_. She had always been taught by her father to pay attention to body language because no matter where you went _that_ was the universal language. You could tell a lot about a person – about a situation – by their body language.

"What is it?" She urged, ignoring the pain of her ribs as she immediately stretched forward. Her eyes were panicked as she thought back to all that could possibly go wrong. Hell, she'd somehow survived a bomb going off – just _what_ could the universe be throwing at her now? "Was it my bloodwork? Did something come up?"

Dr. Steinbeck looked back up at the blonde and gently shook his head. "No. That's just it. Your bloodwork is gone."

Relief hit the blonde first as she settled back into the stiff bed but it was soon followed by extreme confusion. "It's _gone_?" She repeated. "How? Like, they've been misplaced?"

The doctor sighed quietly beneath his breath and shook his head. "Misplaced would be a good term for it. They're just…they're _gone_. We've called transfer hospitals in case they were sent with another file by accident and we've searched every square inch of this one but we can't find them." He pulled up a seat and pushed it towards her bed. "Strange as it is, they've quite literally vanished."

Charlotte blinked slowly as she stared across at the man. "Well, I mean that's not ideal, obviously, but is it _that_ serious? I mean, I don't necessarily need it do I?"

The man slowly allowed his eyes to fall to her file and once again Charlie felt herself grow nervous. Something was clearly wrong – what was he not telling her?

"Charlotte," he began before looking back up at her. "There's no easy way of saying this so I'm just going to come right out with it but you died for one minute and thirty-nine seconds the night you came in." He seemed to rethink his next few words but it wouldn't have mattered to Charlotte. She couldn't hear anything beyond the high pitch ringing in her ears.

She _died?_ She had seen things like that happen on TV but this was real life – it was _her_ life – and to hear that she had technically died at some point in time shook her to her core.

"I-I-" Words failed her as she fully took in his words. "What do you mean that I _died_?"

Dr. Steinbeck offered the woman a small smile. "It _does_ happen more than you think, Charlotte. I—"

"I don't care how often it happens, _why_ did it happen? What happened to me?" She demanded, pushing herself further up the mattress. For the first time in days she felt no pain as she struggled against her I.V's. She felt a sudden pressure release on her outer palm as the IV popped out, but she paid no mind. Dr. Steinbeck instantly stood up to his full height and moved to fix the tube but Charlotte only pulled her hand back and narrowed her eyes. "You can fix that when you tell me what happened to me."

With a sigh, the doctor let his hand fall back down to his side as he stared down at the obviously shell-shocked blonde. "When you got here, you had lost a lot of blood. Twenty-two percent of it, if you want exact numbers. We had to treat _that_ before we could treat anything else and we did. We found your EHIC in your wallet and luckily enough, we were able to see that your blood type was—"

"A-Positive."

"Precisely. Which means you can get a transfusion from either another A or an O. Well, we tried another A but for whatever reason your body didn't take to it. Usually a transfusion from one A to another A is simple but your body went into what we call an Acute Immune Hemolytic Reaction. To put it simply, your body went into defense mode the second that blood came into your veins. Your immune system attacked the red blood cells because, to it, it looked foreign – but it _shouldn't_ have been." He sounded almost frustrated with himself, Charlotte noticed, but she kept her mouth shut sensing he had more to say. "When your body fought off the blood, the attacked cells released a substance into your bloodstream that is extremely harmful – and within minutes your kidneys and your lungs were shutting down. Five minutes later, you died."

An overwhelming silence filled the room the moment Dr. Steinbeck stopped talking. How had she not been told about _any_ of this until now? Her kidneys _and_ lungs had both failed and ultimately killed her. She felt dizzy with all this new information. Dizzy and utterly sick.

"Why did my body refuse the blood?" Her voice came out as a whisper and she had hardly noticed the doctor had begun to patch up her hand that had been released of its IV. "If it's such an easy transfusion in any other situation, why did _my_ situation go south?"

The doctor was silent for a moment but as he slowly looked up into the woman's greyish stare, he seemed at a loss. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "Never in my thirty years of practice has anything like this ever happened. Not to this extent, at least. Your body refused the blood, it refused the morphine and, believe it or not, despite all of that you're healing at an alarmingly accelerated rate. I can't explain it."

Charlotte eyed him for several minutes before lowering her eyes to the white sheet splayed across her lap. Her heart was beating erratically in her chest and if she hadn't been hooked up to the heart monitor she was sure this was what a heart attack felt like. She was horrified.

Her palms began to shake as what she could only assume was a small panic attack began to settle in the pit of her stomach. What was _wrong_ with her? Was this the source of the strange feeling? Was it because she had technically died that she suddenly felt so different?

Just as her nerves were about to boil over, the lights above her quivered and temporarily left both she and the doctor in a darkened room before the lights flickered back to life. With furled brows, she looked up at the fluorescent lights. "What was that?"

Dr. Steinbeck didn't look all that worried as he subtly shrugged his shoulders. "Must be a surge, it's probably nothing." He looked back down at his patient before offering her a comforting hand on her forearm. "I can't apologize more to you for not being able to answer any of your questions. Which is exactly why having your bloodwork go missing is just bizarre. We pride ourselves on being a thorough and professional hospital. Having your file go missing from under our nose shouldn't have happened and I truly apologize for that." He gently pat her arm and stood up to his full height. "That being said we can take more if you'd like –"

"No." She cut in. "It's stupid, I know it's stupid, but I'm too scared now. If my body reacted so strangely before what's stopping it from doing it again?"

Dr. Steinbeck wanted to sway her on the idea but sensing it was not the time, he simply just nodded his head and shot her a small smile. "Well, believe it or not, I do have some good news."

No trace of a smile graced her lips. "And what would that be?"

"You can go home tomorrow."

Her eyebrows immediately furrowed together. "How? You just told me that I _died_ and now I can go home? Is that safe?"

The doctor offered her what she could only assume was an attempt at being a comforting smile. "As I've said, you're healing at an alarmingly rapid rate. Most bomb victims come in here with missing limbs or have died before they've even got to the hospital; you were a rare case. That being said, of course we'll run some more tests and CT's and an Ultrasound before shooing you off but I strongly suspect that by this time tomorrow you'll be in the comfort of your own bed."

Despite the good news, Charlotte was dizzy.

This was all just too much to be dealing with in such a short span of time. Twenty minutes ago she was worried about the pain in her ribs but _now_ she was riddled with the knowledge that at some point in time, she had _died_ and somehow managed to fight her way back to the life.

She wished so desperately to remember _something_ from that night but she couldn't. Not the blast, not the ambulance ride – not even arriving at the hospital.

Without thinking, Charlotte raised her newly-bandaged hand and held it to the bruise that had gathered at the base of her neck. She had noticed the bruise right off the bat. It was an ugly thing; big and freshly yellowed with a tiny almost invisible puncture wound directly in the middle of it. It was just one of many wounds she had attained from the night of the explosion and yet something in her gut told her that this one was different.

 _What the hell happened to me?_ She found herself wondering just as the doctor finally left her room.

An uncomfortable feeling settled in her stomach as she fought so desperately to remember the events of that night. She could remember _someone_ carrying her out of the burning building but just who would risk their life rushing into a dilapidated bar to carry out the one staff member on shift at the time was beyond her. How could they know anyone was even in there let alone find her beneath a pile of burnt rubble?

With a sigh, Charlotte allowed herself to fall back into the stiff mattress as a vicious migraine prodded inside of her temples.

Yes, something was definitely wrong, that much she knew, but she'd be damned if she didn't get to the bottom of it.


	5. Memories

_As she said  
_ _You could be my kind of man  
_ _Will you do the best you can  
_ _And I could use a little time  
_ _I need to straighten out my mind  
_ _And I'm gonna break on, break on through  
_ _And I close my eyes and think of you_

* * *

 _A guttural cry echoed out around the barren cell Bucky sat within but for the first time in what felt like an eternity, it wasn't him screaming. Instead, the man was what Bucky recognized as their latest venture, their newest project, and it was Bucky who stood watch over him to ensure their newest toy stayed precisely where they wanted him._

 _The man, much like Bucky, had metal grips and vices holding him down to the chair he sat upon but unlike him, this man struggled against his confines. He was one of the new ones, Bucky noted, he could always tell the new ones by just how hard they fought the first few weeks – and this one fought like hell._

 _From his dark corner of the concrete underground, he watched the man intently and waited. He waited for the man to give up the fight, to give up just like all of the others had but it had been days now and as the hours ticked on, the man continued to wrestle against any and all obstacles thrown at him._

 _Even then, as Bucky stood not ten feet away with a gun pointed in the man's face, the stranger paid no mind. He was much too hell bent on an escape to care about whether or not the Bucky would shoot._

 _After several minutes, the man fell back against the metal vices and breathed out a rather frenzied breath of air. His flaxen hair, once kempt, was now matted around in several different directions and the various wounds around his face were now turning into ugly black and red scabs that looked both raw and infected._

 _It was only then, despite how close Bucky truly was, that the man seemed to notice Bucky._

 _For a moment, the man said nothing. He simply continued to stare blankly back at Bucky through a pair of greenish grey eyes that were rimmed with red and sweat. It wasn't until the man glanced down at his confined arms that he finally spoke._

" _You can keep staring at me with those dead eyes of yours but I'll be damned if it stops me from getting out of here."_

 _Bucky said nothing to the man, simply continued to stand there wordlessly with his gun aimed and readied for the man's head._

" _So, what are you?" The man asked Bucky, obviously not caring how one-sided the conversation was at this point. "Hydra's sheep dog? There if they need you to herd the sheep back to the slaughter?" Bucky didn't budge. "Got you on one hell of a leash though, don't they?"_

 _It seemed to irk the man the longer Bucky remained quiet. It wasn't until the man, who had the words 'Subject 301' scribbled messily into the metal casing surrounding him, finally allowed his struggling arms to fall back flat against the bindings that Bucky could see just how exhausted the man truly was._

" _Did Hydra cut out your tongue when they pinned your balls up to their flagpole or do you just not like me very much?" The man asked, his strange eyes hooded from his nonstop attempts at an escape. When Bucky didn't answer, the man only frowned. "Guess it's just me."_

" _Ah, I see you've met Mr. Quartermain." A deep voice cut in from across the room._

 _Bucky watched the man's eyes shift towards the unknown voice but Bucky's remained cast forward towards his subject. Ready to shoot if need be._

 _He was always ready._

" _You've gotta be kidding me," the blonde man uttered. "Pierce?"_

 _The name didn't strike a chord for Bucky, but as the man walked up to greet the pair, Bucky found he recognized the man only slightly. Just enough to know that he had seen him before – somewhere – but just where or how he had no idea._

 _The man who stood behind him, however, he knew quite well. He was the first face Bucky had seen every time he woke up from his 'sleep'. His presence was enough to alert Bucky that this man, the one called Pierce, was not to be harmed._

" _Clay." Pierce greeted with a semblance of a smile on his aged face. "It's been a long time, old friend."_

 _The man – Clay, Bucky gathered – struggled against the restraints even harder than he had only moments before and any bit of rage the man had experienced prior to this was moot compared to how he seemed now._

" _You_ bastard! _" The man's voice echoed and Bucky noted the distinct way his jaw clenched when he said those words. "I trusted you! We_ all _trusted you!"_

 _A very small sardonic smile graced the other man's lips. "Which is precisely why this works for me. For us." He signaled to the empty room. "What better way for Hydra to succeed than to crumble the very thing that holds it back? And to crumble it from inside its very flesh?" The man leaned against the base of the table that stood a few feet away from Bucky. "It's a beautiful thing, really."_

 _Clay spat at the man but from his angle it barely reached Bucky let alone the man who stood behind him. "You'll never get away with it, Pierce."_

 _Pierce only laughed and Bucky remained unmoving. It wasn't until he heard Pierce's footsteps approach that he was vividly aware of their close proximities. "And how will_ you _stop me, Quartermain?"Another laugh. "Seems I have the upper hand here."_

 _The man struggled, but the binds never budged. That was when the man's eyes met Bucky's. "Having one of your Hydra dogs point a gun in my face isn't having 'the upper hand' it's being a damn coward."_

" _Oh, don't worry Mr. Quartermain, your time too will come. He might be our best weapon, but I have a good feeling about you."_

 _Bucky's left eye twitched, but he dare not say a word. Clay, on the other hand, had no issue speaking up._

" _What the hell is that supposed to mean?"_

 _Pierce only smiled. "You didn't think I'd skip out on the opportunity to get one of SHIELD's best agents backing Hydra, did you?"_

" _I'd never—"_

" _Oh, hush. I know_ you _wouldn't." He clicked his tongue. "Much too loyal. Pity, really. But what we have planned doesn't involve much of_ you _, per se. Not really."_

 _Clay's strange eyes never left Pierce. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"_

 _A weight suddenly fell on Bucky's shoulder and as he moved his head just enough to gaze at it, he noticed it was Pierce's hand. "Our 'dog' over here was much like you once upon a time. Weren't you, soldier?" He gazed at Bucky with a glimmer of pride in his blue eyes before looking back at Quartermain. "Naïve. Useless." A grin stretched over his thin lips. "But we made him stronger. We made him better. He's limitless, really. And you will be, too."_

 _For the first time since the man arrived, Bucky noticed a glimmer of_ something _pass behind his eyes. But just what that was, he didn't know. He didn't care._

" _I'll die before I become a weapon for Hydra."_

 _Pierce nodded hopefully. "I'm counting on that. That's precisely part of it, really." He stepped closer to the man trapped in his confines and grinned. "You see, Mr. Quartermain, we've been working on something for a while now. A serum, if you will. But in order for it to work your body needs to be immersed into complete stress. That's the only way to activate it, really." Bucky noted the way Pierce moved around the man on the chair. "But don't worry, Clay. If we wanted to truly kill you – for good – you'd be dead already." The man placed a hand on Quartermain's shoulder. "At least this way it'll only be for a few minutes."_

" _I won't let that happen. Neither will SHEILD. You said it yourself, I'm a good agent – once they catch wind of—"_

" _I've thought about that and frankly I'm not worried. We're in Slovakia for starters and you're not much use down here, are you? You have no way to alert them, certainly, and should you escape? Well, I don't think you'll much like that outcome."_

" _Idle threats aren't really my thing, Pierce." The man growled. "You should know this."_

 _Pierce simply hummed before looking at Bucky. "Bring me the file on that table, soldier." Bucky simply blinked, unsure of his next move. It wasn't until he slowly glanced down at the table and noticed a brown folder that he heard Pierce's quiet sigh. "Now, soldier."_

 _Slowly, Bucky allowed his gun to lower so it hung beside his thigh before he picked up the folder and brought it to Pierce. He didn't miss the intense stare resonating from Quartermain as he did so._

" _You see,_ this _is no idle threat." He flipped open the folder to reveal a picture of a blonde girl closely resembling the blonde man. She couldn't have been any older than twenty and she wore a large smile on her face. "And even if it was, would you take that chance?"_

 _Bucky noticed the man's attempts to break free were even wilder now. He thrashed against the restraints so hard that one of the many scabs ripped clear off and began to bleed._

" _You'll stay the fuck away from her, you sick fuck!" Another violent lurch shook one of the metal frames and on instinct alone, Bucky's gun was back up and raised at the man's head. This time, however, the man truly paid no mind. "You stay away from my daughter!"_

Bucky's heart was thrashing wildly in his chest as he jolted up in bed. Beads of sweat poured down his face and neck at the memory of the dream and for a moment all he could do was sit there and pant in an attempt to gather both his breath and his thoughts.

He _knew_ he had seen that man before. The one from the file he had found at the makeshift base he had stumbled upon directly before the bomb went off but _this_ memory was a new one. Without wasting another minute, Bucky stretched over to the small cabinet to his left and pulled at the small notebook.

 _Clay Quartermain – Captured by Hydra. Slovakia._

 _Timeline: 7-8 years ago_

 _Charlotte Quartermain – threat? Known by Hydra._

He thought back to the picture of Charlotte he had seen in his dream. She looked much younger then and rightfully so. He recalled reading that Clay had died seven years prior which would have only made her twenty at the time of his death let alone his capture.

After scribbling down a few more notes and details from his nightmare, Bucky tossed the notebook across the stiff bed and sighed. He was tired, physically, emotionally. He couldn't recall what a decent night's sleep felt like.

Then again, these days he couldn't recall a whole heck of a lot, really.

He blinked and immediately was met with the image of him holding the gun to Quartermain's head. He _truly_ had not felt as if he had killed that woman's father when he saw the picture in the file but how could he know for sure?

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He had honestly thought if any of his memories had come back it was those of the people he had killed over the years. For as truly horrifying as most of them were he almost relied on those memories as a crutch because if _they_ could come back why couldn't the rest?

With an agitated growl, Bucky ground his molars together and clenched his jaw as his blood began to boil. He needed answers, hell, he needed _something_ and sitting in the small hole-in-the-wall apartment was helping with neither. So, before he could talk himself out of it, Bucky threw his legs over the bed and slipped on a pair of jeans with a grey long-sleeved Henley before throwing on his worn jacket and gloves.

He needed some answers and that's exactly what he was going to get.

* * *

The smell of pasta sauce floated throughout Charlotte's small loft as she hungrily stirred the saucepan. The recipe had called for parsley but she had improvised and added a touch of oregano instead. Would it taste the same? Probably not, but as her stomach gave out a loud growl, she found she didn't care all too much. Homemade food, be it something as simple as pasta, was a godsend after all that hospital food she had consumed.

It had officially been five days since she had been out. Five whole days and that strange feeling in her gut was still ever present. She had _died_ and though the doctor had tried to convince her that that type of thing happened quite often, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Terribly, terribly wrong.

It wasn't normal to heal so fast. Even the doctor had said that she was healing at an accelerated rate. Sure, she was still sore, but considering she had survived a bomb going off she was relatively unscathed with the exception of one deep scar running down her jaw. Everything else, her ribs, her ankle, _everything_ was simply just a dull ache at this point. Sure, she did get the occasional pain reverberating through her ribs, but with the exception of that, she was _fine_ and that just didn't seem right.

It didn't seem normal.

Something had changed that night of the blast but just what it was, she had no idea.

"Shit!" She cursed as her knuckles skimmed across the searing hot metal of the pan. Instantly, she dropped the wooden spoon that she had been using to stir and grimaced as an ugly red mark stained her skin. "Of course."

The lights in the apartment gave a low rumble and flickered for a brief moment just as she hobbled towards the sink.

Yet another irritation the week had to offer.

She had lived in the flat for two years but she had never seen the power flicker and fail as often as she had since she had been home. Had they changed the breakers while she was gone? She didn't think so but by mid-week when the seventh power outage happened, she called her landlord and gave him an earful.

This, naturally, was met with a half-assed inspection of the breaker, the control panel and her wiring but according to him, they found nothing.

"Assholes," she growled as she ran her hand under the cold water. "Couldn't even guarantee me a full day of power." As her irritation grew, the lights flickering above her head only got worse. "Oh, for God's sake!" She finally cried out as she slammed the faucet down.

Within five steps, she crossed her apartment, gathered her iPhone, and punched in the familiar number belonging to that of her landlord.

It went straight to voicemail.

Did she blame him? Not entirely as this would have been her third or fourth call of the week – she would probably screen her calls, too – but what choice did she have? Something was clearly wrong with the power and it technically was _his_ job to take care of problems like that.

So, with that in mind, she waited to hear the tiny beep signifying the start of her message.

"Oh, hi Mr. Klausmann, it's Charlie again from 4b. I just wanted to let you know that the power is _still_ flickering – even more so now, if that's possible – so if you could please either call me back or come on up when you have the time that would be great. Thanks!"

With an agitated sigh, she set her phone on the nearest table and took a seat on the chair facing the window.

 _What a week_ , she thought to herself as she tiredly leaned back into the plush, worn leather. Slowly, she lulled her head to the side to peer out the window but was distracted when she noticed the pile of Gabe's diaries on the table beside her.

Curiously, she reached for one and began to gently flip through the delicate pages. Right away, she noticed Gabe's familiar writing and, despite the situation at hand, she found herself smiling.

It wasn't until she flipped to a picture of the Howling Commandos that her smile slowly fell and was replaced by a curious frown. She had seen this picture before but as she looked closer at the picture of one soldier in particular – a one Bucky Barnes – something far in her memory piqued to life. She recalled seeing the picture back at the hospital with Gabe and though the man in the picture looked familiar then, but that feeling was tenfold now.

She was _sure_ she had seen him, but how? Where? He was long dead by now, that much she knew, but even knowing that, the feeling of fluency never went away.

Suddenly the smell of smoke filtered into her nose and for a moment she froze. Immediately, images of her blurred vision beneath a pile of rubble and debris pounded through her brain. She could practically see herself lying there helpless and dying but it was that feeling in her lungs, that heaviness, that she recalled the most.

It felt claustrophobic.

Then a pair of arms were around her, hoisting her up and away from the carnage. She blinked several times in an attempt to see the person, the man, more clearly but her attempts were moot.

The memory of the explosion came and went the second her fire alarm began to sound from the kitchen. Immediately, her heart shot up into her throat and before she could think twice, she was running into the tiny kitchen where she noticed the wooden spoon engulfed in a small flame.

"Shit!" She screeched, running towards the sink to fill up a nearby cup. Thankfully, the fire was still very much contained and as soon as she poured the water on the stove, the flames doused and filled the small room with a thick, grey smoke that smelled awful.

With a shaky breath, Charlotte lowered the cup to the counter and observed the mess with trembling hands. She was furious – no, _murderous_ and on top of everything her food was ruined.

 _You've got to be kidding me_ , she thought bitterly, but just as her anger began to pound so intensely that she swore she could feel the blood boiling in her ears, the lights above her finally cut and she was left in nothing but darkness.

"Amazing," she muttered beneath her breath as she stood there in the blackness of the kitchen. It took her a few minutes before she was able to grab her leather jacket and head towards the door. She knew her luck was running thin these days and chances of her landlord getting back to her in the next few hours was not likely. So, with that in mind, she grabbed her keys and her purse and headed out of the flat.

Maybe her luck would be better out of her power-free flat. At the very least, it couldn't possibly get much worse.

Or so she thought.


	6. Lightning

_Louder louder_  
 _And we'll run for our lives_  
 _I can hardly speak I understand_  
 _Why you can't raise your voice to say_

* * *

There was an unsettling feeling of dread in the air when Charlotte returned to her apartment. Naturally, the lights were still off and nothing seemed to have moved but _something_ felt different. There was iciness in the air that hadn't been there before and it made her nauseous.

Shivering, Charlotte threw her keys in the dish by the front door and slipped off her jacket as she glanced around her small apartment. In her hand she grasped the takeaway bag tightly almost waiting for something to jump out and scare her – but nothing did. _Of course not, idiot,_ she thought to herself as she threw her leftover Greek gyro into the dark fridge, _because nothing is in your flat._

With a sigh, she carefully straightened out her posture and winced as a slicing pain shot through her still-tender ribs. Cursing quietly, Charlie leaned on the counter to catch her breath. She'd done a lot since being released from the hospital, maybe a little too much if she was honest, and it was only now all starting to catch up to her. She was tired, sore, and for the most part still annoyed with how the week had gone. Not even the gyro and a full belly could help those feelings.

Coming home to a dark apartment certainly didn't help matters any and neither did the fact that her landlord was still MIA. How long did she have until the food in the fridge would thaw? What was she going to do in the middle of autumn with no heat whatsoever? Another angry hiss escaped through her pink lips, only this time it wasn't due to the pain resonating from her side. Sheer annoyance plagued the blonde as she sat in her dark kitchen shaking her head.

Deciding that she was going to try and reach the oaf that was her landlord for what felt like the umpteenth time this week, Charlie pulled out her cell and thumbed his contact one final time.

It went straight to voicemail.

"This has to be a joke." She grumbled to herself, tossing the phone across the counter as a tiny fit of rage overcame her. She wanted nothing more than to leave him a verbal voicemail and lay into him but she knew that would get her nowhere. So, rather than stewing in her own mind, she pushed herself off of the counter and walked towards her bedroom. If she wasn't meant to have power she would just go to sleep and hope for the best come morning.

She changed out of her clothes rather slowly as exhaustion ate away at her. Kicking her boots off into the corner of her room, she slid off her jeans and replaced them with a pair of short plaid pajama shorts and a loose fitting v-neck before falling into her plush bed. With a long sigh she allowed her body to relax as she tried her damnedest to destress or, at the very least, succumb to the fatigue that had been plaguing her all week long.

But just as she was about to let her heavy eyelids fall shut, the faint sounds of footsteps caught her attention.

An immediate surge of panic coursed through her entire body as her eyes flew open in an attempt to see through the darkness of her room.

Someone was in her apartment and had it not been for the eerie silence that followed after the power outage she never would have heard.

An overbearing panic settled in her chest as she thought of how she could get to the bat hidden beneath her bed but she couldn't move. She was immobilized by fear and that alone was enough to scare her even more.

 _3…2…_

She quickly turned and lunged for the bat but was stopped the second a body tackled her back onto the bed. Immediately, a blood curdling scream tore from her throat but the attackers hand quickly smacked a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Frantically, she fought against him, thrashing wildly in an attempt to break free of their firm grip.

"Get off of me!" Thinking fast, she swung one of her arms back and grabbed his crotch with all her might as her nails dug into the sensitive area. Immediately, the man's grip lessened just enough for her to elbow him as hard as she could in the gut before breaking free.

With shaky, labored breaths, Charlie ran towards the front door but was stopped by a second man almost instantly. He grabbed her arms first and swung her around so one of his thick arms was wrapped around her throat as the other held onto her middle in an attempt to stop her from thrashing about.

She could feel every stitch she'd acquired in the hospital rip open as she attempted to break free and the overwhelming pain resonating from her ribs was almost blinding at this point but she couldn't stop fighting. She wouldn't. These men were either going to kill her or take her and if that was the case she sure as hell wasn't going down without a fight.

As if on cue, the other man stumbled out of her room a moment later looking angry as all hell. He was tall, much taller than the man holding her and as broad as a linebacker but it was the look of absolute disdain on her face that scared her half to death. He meant business – just _what_ that business was, however, she had no idea.

"Handsy little bitch, aren't ya?"

The back of his hand hit her newly acquired scar that ran along her jaw and split the sensitive skin instantly. With a tangled sob, Charlie allowed her body to stop fighting for only a moment before looking back at the man that stood before her.

He looked smug now as he wiped the blood – _her blood_ \- off of his hand and the sight of it alone was enough to trigger a sensation so foreign that she saw double. It felt as though her entire body was on pins and needles and the pain resonating from her ribs was no sooner replaced by a white hot burning sensation that cut her like a knife. She was shaking all over, her hands specifically, and though she wanted to blame it on shock or adrenaline – she knew better.

This, whatever it was, was different.

A loud scream ripped from her throat as the blinding pain inside of her finally took over. She heard the two men question what they were witnessing in the back of her mind, but they suddenly sounded far away and muffled as the man's arm fell from around her neck.

The next few seconds seemed to go on forever as something inside of Charlotte sparked to life. She saw herself raising her hands towards the two men but she didn't feel in control – in fact, she felt nothing as the pins and needles overtook her entire body. It wasn't until a blinding white pulse seemed to shoot from her hands and hit one of the men head on that Charlie felt her heart drop.

The man fell to the floor a second later. Smoke filtered from his lifeless body.

"What—" She looked at the other man who looked just as shocked as she felt but rather than running as she hoped he would, a look of determination spread out across his angry features as he took a step towards her. "Stop!" She screamed as another blast shot out from her hands but it hadn't been as large as the other one that had killed his partner and merely grazed his shoulder.

Unfortunately, this gave the man ample opportunity to grab the blonde and try to finish what he and his partner had started only minutes before. His hands grabbed at her neck as he pulled something out of his pocket and as she struggled against him, she couldn't help but notice it was a syringe of some sort. Panic set in as she fought off the hand holding the needle.

That was when the sensation started again.

That hot, searing pain took hold of the woman once more as she fought for her life only this time only this time there was no space between her and the man as the white light shot out from her hands. It was as if a pulse of electricity shot through her as the man flew across the room, stopping only when his lifeless body hit her kitchen counter.

The smell of burning flesh immediately met her senses as she choked back a sob and stared down at her shaking hands. What had just happened? What had she done? Two men lay dead on her floor because of her – because _something_ had sparked to life inside of her in those few minutes of complete chaos and killed them.

Her stomach gave a vicious flip as her knees buckled beneath her and as she ran a trembling hand over her face, she realized only then that her nose was bleeding. With exhaustion and stress weighing on her, Charlotte stumbled over to the window only to notice the entire street was left in darkness.

Another blackout.

She felt dizzy all of the sudden. What the hell had happened to her that night of the blast? She knew _something_ felt different but not the kind of different that leaves you with sparks flying out of your hands. Her head swirled and she grasped onto the nearest chair to stop herself from succumbing to the exhaustion that plagued her entire body.

Suddenly an extremely loud bang sounded from her front door and as she spun on her heel to peer at the source of it, her heart fell to her stomach. How many more of these people were there? Within a moment, the door splintered and shot open revealing a man with long dark hair wearing a brown jacket and a black cap. He looked at her warily before his eyes caught sight of the two dead men that lay off to the side.

Another wave of nausea hit as she stared back at the man who was yet to say a word. Would he try and handle her the way the other two had? Unfortunately, she didn't have much time to think about his possible motive as one final wave of exhaustion crashed upon her and her whole world went black.

* * *

An hour and a half had passed since Bucky had watched the blonde collapse to the floor and he had since tied her up to the nearest chair and waited for any sign of life to show besides the slow rise and fall of her chest.

He felt anxious simply just waiting there but after managing to get the two bodies out of her apartment, he had nothing but time to wait for the woman to wake up. He had questions – more so now that she had killed two agents with such ease – and he'd wait all night to get them if he had to.

The power was still out in her apartment and on much of the street – something he was sure was attributed to the fact that Hydra had done exactly what they wanted to do to get their newest weapon prepared for duty. All except actually capture her which was obviously what went down tonight.

He had been waiting outside of her apartment when he heard a scream followed by an extremely loud vibration that darkened the entire street.

She'd given the entire block a power outage and killed two Hydra agents in one fell swoop.

Whoever she was, she was powerful, and the flimsy rope tying her to that chair was starting to look a little feeble compared to the power source this woman apparently was.

A quiet, barely-there groan escaped from her lips as she began to come to life and on reflex alone, Bucky sat up a little taller in the chair and clenched his jaw as he mentally prepared to deal with another one of Hydra's experiments. Her head lulled to the side at first but her eyes stayed shut for the longest time before they finally opened up to reveal an extremely tired pair of stormy eyes.

When she saw Bucky sitting across from her, he noticed her inhale a rather shaky breath before speaking.

"What do you people want with me?"

His fists curled at the accusation despite knowing she meant no harm in the question. She had no rhyme or reason _not_ to believe that Bucky was with the men who had just tried to abduct her but the anger that poured through his every vein was still overwhelming.

"I'm not one of them." He nearly growled. _Not anymore._

On instinct, he watched her strange eyes float towards the area where the two bodies once sat and noticed the exact moment she realized they were no longer there. In an instant, her eyes were back on him as she attempted to fight against the ropes. "Where did they go?"

Bucky blinked and relaxed ever so slightly as he noticed the ropes seemed to hold their place. "I took care of it."

There was a deep purple bruise on her cheek where she had obviously been hit but it was the scar that lingered that caught his attention. He remembered seeing the gash the night he had brought her out of the rubble of the bar but seeing the obvious scar that was forming because of it stirred something in his stomach. It was a bestowal left by Hydra that this woman would forever carry. An ugly scar marring an otherwise pretty face. She'd always be forced to carry a piece of _them_ around with her everywhere she went.

Just the way they liked it.

"Who are you?"

The words floated from her mouth with ease but he wasn't about to answer her. Instead, he simply glanced around the small apartment for any signs of trouble. It was habit and it gave him time to think of just what exactly he wanted to ask _her_.

"Why are you here?"

Again, he looked up at her but said nothing. He knew she was scared and he could see the confusion she felt as clear as day – but he would offer no words of solace. He had none. He was here for his own questions, not to supply answers to hers.

"You look familiar." The statement blindsided Bucky for a moment. She _had_ said his name that night of the blast with such assuredness despite her near-death state but the confusion her tone held now was something he hadn't expected. "Have we met?"

The muscle in Bucky's jaw clenched as he tore his gaze away from her to look down at his lap. She didn't remember – that was both good _and_ bad.

"I know your father," was all he said on the matter, chancing a look back at the woman. Her brows furled at his words but there was a sadness in her eyes that had not been there before. "Knew him." He corrected. She was quiet after that and Bucky figured now was as good as time as any to begin asking his own questions. "Do you know who those two men were?"

The blonde shook her head and Bucky noticed the fight that had been in her earlier was long gone. Now, she simply looked worn out. She didn't attempt to fight against the ropes – she hardly managed to lift her head up high enough to look him in the face.

"No," she told him. "They knew me, though." She glanced across at him and took in his features. She started at his face, and then down to his shoulders before glancing over his clothes. He felt uncomfortable under her stare and maybe that had to do with the fact that he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't been the one to deliver the blow that killed her father. Not after that dream. The images of her father fighting against the restraints that held him still plagued his every thought. "Do you know who they were?"

Bucky nodded only once. "Hydra."

Another look of confusion passed over the woman's features as she slowly shook her head. "Hydra? What would they want with me?"

"I was going to ask you that," was all he said. "Why were they after you?"

A look of anger passed over the woman's features as she stared him down. She still looked exhausted, absolutely worn out, but the moment the question left his lips it was as if a tiny spark had ignited.

"I didn't get a chance to ask them." She let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a scoff and Bucky found his eyes drawn back to the ropes that held her wrists. They still weren't budging all that much but that small revelation didn't help his morale one bit. She killed two men with what looked like an electrical shock – rope wasn't going to stop her if she decided to do that again. "I don't know why two strange men showed up in the middle of the night and attacked me. Nor do I know who you are or why I know your face or why you tied me up."

"You killed two Hydra agents. For all you knew, I could have been the third. I wasn't going to take that chance."

She sighed. "I don't know how I did that, either."

Bucky squared his shoulders at the tone she was using. The last thing he wanted was this girl getting overly emotional after what he'd just witnessed. "What _do_ you know?"

Charlotte blanched as she glowered across at the dark-haired man. "A week ago I was in an explosion that I hardly remember where I magically survived only to find out that I died for a few minutes while I was in the hospital. And now, tonight – after a week from hell – I shoot white things out of my hands and kill to men in the midst of them trying to abduct me only to wake up tied to a chair with _you_ looking as brooding and menacing as ever." She took a shaky breath and Bucky could easily see the panic in her eyes. "And _you_ have the audacity to ask _me_ what _I_ know?"

Bucky searched the woman's face as he thought of all the questions that needed answering. She truly didn't seem to know a thing but even with that knowledge he couldn't find it in himself to stand up and walk away. The blonde had actually addressed him as Bucky Barnes – but _how_? Even her father wouldn't have known him as Bucky so how on earth did this girl manage to say his name whilst barely conscious?

That was when her words struck him.

' _Only to find out I died for a few minutes while I was in the hospital_.' His stomach knotted at that small disclosure as he thought back to the dream that had been plaguing him since he woke up.

 _"You see, Mr. Quartermain, we've been working on something for a while now. A serum, if you will. But in order for it to work your body needs to be immersed into complete stress. That's the only way to activate it, really." Bucky noted the way Pierce moved around the man on the chair. "But don't worry, Clay. If we wanted to truly kill you – for good – you'd be dead already." The man placed a hand on Quartermain's shoulder. "At least this way it'll only be for a few minutes."_

Realization hit Bucky like a ton of bricks as he angrily breathed out through his nose.

Hydra's plan was now complete.

They'd actually managed to create a new weapon. The only part of their plan that was still pending was actually attaining their brand new weapon where they would undoubtedly wipe her clean just like they had done with him.

"You know something."

Her voice managed to tear him away from his thoughts as he looked past the fog in his head towards the blonde. She was looking directly at him and any trace of exhaustion she previously wore was now gone and replaced with a look of pure determination.

Bucky shook his head. "I—"

"How did you know my father?" Was the first question that tumbled from her lips. "He died seven years ago – you don't look old enough to have been chummy with him before he died so how did you know him?"

Bucky swallowed hard but said nothing. To say things were not going according to plan would have been an understatement.

Suddenly a look of pure bewilderment flashed across the woman's face as she surveyed his every feature. "Were you in Slovakia with him?"

The name of the country alone was enough to garner a wince from the man as he lowered his blue eyes down to the ground separating them. Immediately an array of images straight out of his dream flooded through his mind and left him reeling. He felt sick all of the sudden and he knew right then that coming here was a mistake.

In a heartbeat, Bucky was standing up to his full height as he readjusted the cap on his head. This had been a mistake.

"Wait," she cried out, her voice panicked. "Were you there? In Slovakia?"

"No," he said as he walked towards her window to peer down at the empty street below. "Never been."

"You're lying to me," he could hear her struggling against the ropes and knew he had to go. When he turned to face her, the look in her eyes was desperate. "Who are you?"

With one final shake of his head, Bucky moved towards the woman and loosened the ropes _just_ enough that she would be able to shimmy out of them in due time but not near loose enough that she would escape before he could do so himself.

He was just out the door when he glanced behind him to peer at the struggling woman once more. That familiar feeling of guilt was eating away at him as he thought about Hydra's plans for her. No one deserved that.

"You've got a target on your back now," he said quietly as he glanced around her apartment. "And Hydra doesn't miss." He ensured his eyes found hers one final time before opening up the front door. "You need to leave."

Those grey eyes were panicked again as he slipped out of her apartment and that niggling feeling of culpability ate away at him – but this time, he didn't turn around. He kept walking until he was safely in the shadows Charlotte's blackout had provided him.

With a subtle glance behind his back, he took one final peek up at her apartment before ducking his head down to ensure no one saw his face. He would head to Slovakia next. Maybe there he'd find some answers on whether or not it was him who delivered the final blow to Quartermain – and if he hadn't maybe he could find out what _did_ happen seven years prior.

He needed answers in the worst way possible and now, as he walked away from the one woman who had recognized him since that day at the Potomac with Steve, he was dead-set on getting them.

* * *

 **A/N:** This story is also being published on Tumblr on the account blueeyedbuck should anyone think that it's being stolen. It ISN'T. I'm just trying to get Fight or Flight on more outlets.


	7. Goodbye

" _I will not kiss you  
_ _'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you"_

* * *

The last three days had gone by in a blur for Charlotte and yet every second of every minute of every hour seemed to go on forever. She felt as though she was living in a catatonic state – there but not quite _all_ there. She felt sick and she felt tired but despite all of her attempts at sleep, it never came. She was too scared to fall asleep, now. Scared of what could happen – both to her and _because_ of her – and scared of seeing those two dead men haunt her every dream.

Three days ago, she had _killed_ two people and though it hadn't been done deliberately, the guilt and shame and utter confusion was still there. But what truly scared her was the way it happened. She hadn't killed them with a gun or a knife - hell, she hadn't even touched them and yet _something_ shot out of her lethal enough to kill two Hydra agents.

She was a killer. A freak. A monster.

It was only after that night that the events that had been plaguing her made sense. The blackouts, the accelerated healing, the strange feeling in her stomach – all of it had been on account of her newly found power.

And all of it was because of Hydra.

Her blood ran cold at the thought of how close she had been to losing herself to those bastards. They had come for her that night with the intention of abducting her and despite not knowing _why_ exactly she had been chosen, that reminder alone was enough to make her nervous as all hell.

How long would it be until another agent showed up? He would undoubtedly bring more backup considering how their previous plan had gone and if that was the case, could she handle it? Sure, by some happenstance, she had managed to fend off two of them – but what if more showed up? She'd passed out cold after only two, how on earth was she going to manage a hoard?

And then there was the issue of the man that had come after the two agents. The tall, broad, dark-haired man with the lost eyes and a familiar face.

He had quite literally appeared out of nowhere and not only disposed of the two dead agents but had also warned her to get out of dodge to avoid a repeat attack. But who was he? Despite being almost certain she had never seen the man before, she couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity upon seeing him and she hadn't been able to shake it since he left.

He'd known her father of all people but that was just another unanswered question. He didn't look a day older than thirty, if he was that, and considering her father had died seven years prior she didn't understand how that was even possible. He would have been awful young even by SHIELD's standards to have fought alongside him, so what did that mean?

There were far too many unanswered questions and as the days wore on and her frustrations grew, Charlotte grew restless and antsy. She was a sitting duck in her apartment but being outside of it made her feel too exposed. She felt as though all eyes were on her nearly every second of the day and it was slowly driving her to the brink of insanity.

She needed answers, though, and as she walked along the bustling streets of London towards the one place she felt safe, she was determined to get them.

Rain poured down from the heavens above and soaked Charlotte to the bone as she hastily walked out of the tube station and towards the hospice that housed her Uncle Gabe. Her hair was drenched along with everything else on her, but she paid no mind. She was hell-bent on getting some answers from the one person she knew she could trust and a little rain wasn't going to stop her.

With every step she took, she felt as though she needed to glance over her shoulder to ensure she wasn't being followed. If anything further happened to her, that was one thing – but if any harm came to Gabe on account of her, she'd never be able to forgive herself.

Gabe was the only family in the world that Charlotte had left and soon enough he too would be gone if the cancer had its way. That thought alone was enough to make her eyes well up in tears as the rain continued to pour down.

She'd never felt so alone in her life.

Thankfully, she reached the hospice in record time and as she walked through security clearance, she was grateful they had such precautions. Maybe she'd be able to relax – something she hadn't done since the strange man left her apartment three days prior.

She rounded the final corner that lead to Gabe's room and felt a sense of ease spread through her bones that she hadn't felt since the accident but despite being happy to see the older man, Charlotte felt her stomach plummet as she took in his considerably weaker frame.

His face was gaunt now, eyes sunken in and cheekbones quite visible. He looked sick and Charlotte felt her heart break in two at the sight of him.

"Well, if it isn't my favourite girl." The old man said as she stepped into view. She couldn't help but notice his smile hadn't changed all that much – it was still big and full of life and she prayed to God that she would remember _this_ image of him and keep it with her forever.

"Hey, Uncle Gabe," she pushed out a smile she hoped didn't look as forced as it felt. "How are you feeling?"

The man winced slightly as he sat himself up but that smile never left his features. "Oh, I'm still kickin'. Cancer ain't killed me yet."

Her smile fell flat as the C word came tumbling from his lips. She wished like hell she could help him in anyway but she wasn't a naïve little girl, she had been told first-hand by the nurses that it would only be a few months before she would have to say her goodbyes and seeing him this way made it all the more real.

She swallowed hard but shot him a watery smile as she took a seat by his bedside. For a moment, neither of them spoke but she could feel Gabe's eyes soaking up the obvious scar she had that ran along her jaw. It was an ugly looking thing and she couldn't blame him for staring, but she found herself covering it up with a sheet of wet hair regardless.

"You got some nerve askin' me how I'm doing when you've got a scar the size of Atlanta on your face." Gabe pressed, his smile fading away instantly. "What the hell happened?"

And so, she told him. Everything. Every little detail from the night of the explosion down to the night three days prior with the two Hydra agents and the unknown man that had dropped in only moments later. By the time she had finished, that nervous feeling was back and she felt sick to her stomach.

"I just can't shake the feeling that I knew him." She admitted, running a shaky hand through her long, blonde hair. "But it's not possible. And I _know_ in my gut that if he did know my dad it wasn't in the normal sense of _knowing_ someone." She felt awful unloading everything on a dying man but she trusted him with her life and if there was anyone who could offer her some solace, it was Gabe.

"Your father worked with a lot of different people. We all did – but he would've been a kid if he was as young as you're saying and that wasn't something that happened all that often." Gabe sipped at the juice the nurse had brought in and shrugged. "And you didn't get a name?"

"I didn't get _anything_." She thought back to the night that had been haunting her. "But when I mentioned Slovakia _something_ seemed to register with him."

Gabe's brows rose in concern. "Slovakia? Honey, Clay was the only SHIELD agent captured when he was in Slovakia. If something registered on that boy's face it wasn't good news."

Something sparked to life in Charlotte's gut as Gabe hinted at the idea of the man possibly being on the wrong side of things in Slovakia. If he was Hydra, she'd be in their hands right about now – or worse – but all he did was ask her questions she had absolutely no answers to. That didn't exactly scream Hydra agent to her.

"I asked him if he was one of them, though, and—"

"You expect him to come out with sparklers and fireworks announcing he's one of the bad guys." Gabe shook his head. "Don't work like that, honey. I'm telling you, there were no other SHEILD agents in Slovakia when you're father passed. _If_ something registered with him and _if_ he was there – I can guarantee you he wasn't one of the good ones."

Charlotte was at a loss as she slowly leaned back into the stiff chair, her mind was a million miles away. She didn't know what to believe anymore. Hell, she didn't even know who she _was_ anymore. This was all so much.

She heard Gabe shuffle beside her and immediately focused back on him and him alone. He was looking very serious in that instance, and he seemed deep in thought as he stared across at her. Once again, she felt his eyes sweep over the ugly pink scar marring her jawline before he opened his mouth to speak.

"Whoever the man was, he was right." His eyes found hers and an immediate sense of dread clouded Charlotte's entire body. "You've got a target on your back now, Charlie. You're not safe here."

Charlotte blinked. "I've got nowhere to go, Gabe. I can't lay low somewhere and even if I could, I'm not leaving you here. Not now, not when you're going through all _this_." She gestured to the number of machines he was hooked up to. "You're not doing this alone."

His chilled hand enveloped hers in an instance and she couldn't fight the onslaught of tears that threatened to spill. "If you staying here on account of an old man dying of cancer is what gets you killed, I'd never forgive myself, Charlie." He squeezed her hand. "I vowed to your father from the time you were a baby girl that I'd protect you if and when he couldn't be there and I've done just that, I'd like to believe." That big smile returned to his features and broke her in two. "But I ain't doing much of that in here, Charlie. And right about now is when you need it the most."

Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she took in the man's every feature. "I won't leave you in here, Uncle Gabe."

His smile never wavered, not even for a second. "Yes, you will." He told her sadly. "You aren't going to lose your life trying to be here for the rest of mine."

Her shaky hand brushed away the tears that poured from her eyes as she hastily shook her head. "I'll get a new apartment and get some fake ID's," she tried to reason. "They won't find me."

"These aren't amateurs, Charlotte. These people killed your father, killed my comrades and they were trained for these sort of situations. A twenty-seven year old woman with a fake ID isn't going to slip pass their radar and you know that yourself."

Charlotte grasped his hand as if it were a lifeline. "You're dying, Gabe. I can't stand the thought of you dying alone."

Gabe only raised his hand and cupped the woman's cheek. "I've lived a good, long life, honey. And if I can die knowing I've done all I can possibly do to ensure your safety, then I'll die a happy man." He allowed his hand to fall back down on the bed. "Besides, you've got questions that need answering and you ain't gonna find those answers here, Charlie. Go to Slovakia. Your father had a lot of enemies and I'm more than willing to bet the reason _you're_ sitting here with that power right now is on account of that. Maybe they finished what they started with Clay, I don't know, but you and I both know you'll find more answers there than you will here."

Charlotte was gob smacked. She'd never thought this trip to Gabe would be one of the last she'd take – she wasn't prepared for that. She was prepared to be here with him as he took his final breaths but she'd never expected to walk away from him when he needed her the most.

And yet, here she was.

"How will I know you're alright?" She swallowed hard. "Gabe, I can't do this."

"You can, honey. And you will. You've got your father's inheritance and that should be enough to last you for quite some time. It's more than enough to get you to Slovakia to get the answers you need."

She was crying again and the throbbing pain in her chest was enough to cause the lights above them to falter. For a brief moment, she panicked. The last thing she wanted was to cause a blackout and mess with the machines that she knew were keeping the man she cherished so deeply alive.

She needed to get her emotions in check for him if nothing else.

"Pack what you need when you get home and be quick. It's been three days, I wouldn't be surprised if they're ready for a second attack now. They've seen what you can do now and they're going to be looking for their weapon." He searched her eyes. "Get yourself to Slovakia and lay low. Those journals I gave you have a lot of information in them and there's some evidence I was able to scrounge out at the time of your father's death in Slovakia but it's not much."

Charlotte shook her head. "Gabe, I—"

"I need you to do this for me, Charlie." He held her hand again and it took everything she had not to break down in tears again. "Promise me that you'll do this."

She wanted nothing more than to scream her protest but as she stared across at the man she considered her second father, she didn't have it in her. He looked so determined and if his dying wish was to keep her as safe as humanly possible, who was she to go against him?

Slowly, she stood up to her full height and leaned down to kiss the crown of his head. The throbbing in her chest was almost overwhelming and as he reached up and held both of her hands in his own, it took everything she had not to break down and cry. This was the man who had played such an integral part of her life and here she was walking away from him.

"I love you Uncle Gabe." She whispered as a sob tore through her throat. "You're one of the best men that I've ever known and thank you so much for being in my life."

Her hands shook as she pulled away from him and when she noticed the tears in her eyes she had to cover her mouth to muffle the sobs emitting from her throat.

This wasn't right, nor was it fair.

"I love you, too, Charlie." He rasped out. "Never forget that."

All she could do was nod as her feet carried her towards the door. She was leaving a piece of herself in that room with her uncle that she would never get back.

"Be safe, Charlie." Were Gabe's last words to her.

All Charlie could do was nod her head once and grip her chest as a pain so extreme shot through her body. "You too, Uncle Gabe."

And with that, she turned on her heel and left the one remaining family member she had.

* * *

 **A/N:** SO, I know Buck was not in this whatsoever but this chapter still broke my heart. This chapter also signifies the beginning of everything to be honest – so stay tuned. (Also THANK YOU to everyone for all of the love on this story, it means a lot!)

Lots of Charlie/Buck from here on out.

Please review!


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